News, reviews, and commentary on the world of superhero comics from your favorite college professor (or me)

Philosophy

November 21, 2014

Marvel's current crossover event, AXIS, involves various characters having their ethical orientation "inverted": heroes become villians and vice versa. A deceptively simple premise that has been used throughout the history of superhero comics—but rarely on this scale—it has potential for interesting stories (as well as culminating in "things will never be the same" changes to the status quo).

Ironically, however, it is precisely the aspect of Marvel's characters that makes them unique—their moral complexity and nuance—that confounds efforts to "flip" them from good to evil or from evil to good, resulting in strange adn confusing choices in storytelling and characterization.

There are very few characters in the Marvel Universe who are unambiguously good or evil: Captain America (that is, Steve Rogers) and the Red Skull, who are not among the inverted, are the two obvious exceptions. (There could be others too: for instance, I'd throw in Spider-Man, pure of heart but imperfect in execution, who interestingly was also not inverted.) The vast majority of the Marvel heroes and villains, however, are more complex, the heroes struggling against their more base natures and the villains striving to some degree to find redemption or achieve noble ends. But this complexity, a hallmark of Marvel Comics since the firm of Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and Associates dreamed them up in the 1960s, makes it diffiult to simply "flip" their moral characters. As a result, in AXIS we see a wildly inconsistent approach to inversions, especially regarding several heroes and one villain in particular.

Throughout this series and its tie-ins, I've been fascinated and frustrated by two characters in particular, Iron Man and Doctor Doom, whom I've long found to be very similar in their moral characters. Essentially utilitarian in their ethics, both pursue their personal visions of "the good" while believing that the ends justify the means. This leads Iron Man, for example, to take the controversial actions he took during Civil War in order to protect the superhero community, and leads Doom to try to take over the world, time and time again, because—as shown well in the miniseries Doomwar—he believes in his heart that only his rule can save humanity. Of course, both also have massive egos which serve to enable their extreme actions in pursuit of their singular visions, granting each the perception of entitlement, even the duty, to use their superior intelligence to save the world, damn the costs (as well as indulge personal vendettas and grudges along the way), and it is this arrogance which often foils their greatest ambitions (especially in Doom's case).

But after they are inverted during AXIS, these two similar characters are spun in completely opposite directions. Iron Man is portrayed as a mustache-twirling Snidely, teasing the citizens of San Francisco with an Extremis app that can make them "perfect" and then charging them $100 per day to maintain it. (This could be seen merely as leveraging an extremely attractive—and presumably legal—product for maximum revenue, but that sort of behavior often represents evil in popular fiction, and in any case is quite a departure from Tony's recent corporate altruism.) In other words, whatever restraints Tony Stark once felt on his pursuit of the good, for himself or for the world, have been removed. But this is not Tony "inverted"—this is Tony squared, Tony unleashed, his buffers removed, all second-guessing forgotten, resulting in even more of a caricature of himself than (according to some) in Civil War.

On the other hand, Doom has been all but neutered, now positively apoplectic about all the pain he caused his beloved citizens of Latveria, on whom he bestows democracy (by fiat, natch) before embarking on a program of making amends like a charter member of Villains Anonymous. The once proud and noble Doom simpers to Valeria Richards (daughter of Sue and Reed, currently living with Dad's greatest enemy in a delightful act of childhood defiance) about his need to right his past wrongs and also protect himself Latveria from an inverted Scarlet Witch who wants revenge for the events of Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and her wimple. (He had nothing to do with last one, but she could be understandably pissed about it all the same.) He even admits to Valeria—brace yourself, true believers—that Reed Richards has "always been right."

While Iron Man's "inversion" magnified his worse impulses, Doom's robbed him of his best. He either no longer seems to want to save humanity—a change that, in itself, hardly seems heroic—or he no longer feels he can do it and that the way he was doing it was incorrect—which is not an ethical change but an empirical one about methods. The thing that was evil about Doom was the steps he was willing to take to serve his goal of saving the world, but his nobility came from his sense of purpose and the moral lines he was not willing to cross (matters of honor such as truthfulness and keeping promises). Where he was once a fascinating man of extremes, now he's been reduced in both his ambition and his arrogance.

How interesting it would have been if, instead, Doom had been inverted into a traditional one-dimensional villain instead, using his brilliance to rob banks. Then, at least, the reader would have been led to ponder the true complexity of Doom's character and wonder if he was really a villain to begin with, and in what ways he was different from a hero like Iron Man. (At least they didn't make him an angry blogger.)

It seems that what the inversions did was not to flip the overall ethical orientation of the affected heroes—except in the most simplistic way possible, turning nuanced moral characters into one-dimensional caricatures—but merely flip the degree to which they perceived limits on their activity: for example, Iron Man sees fewer limits and Doom sees more. Apart from Tony and Vic, the Scarlet Witch indulges her desire for revenge against Doom; the all-new Captain America (Sam Wilson) still fights crime, but more like the Punisher than he did as the Falcon; and the X-Men become very pro-active against humanity (making Cyclops look like Gandhi). None of them has become a villain per se, but simply less traditionally heroic by virtue of crossing lines that once they refused to cross.

The main idea of AXIS is to flip heroes and villains along the "axis" of good and evil. But given the complexity granted to most of the Marvel characters by their creators, and maintained over the years out of dedication to that vision, there is no simple axis to be found. Most Marvel characters express their heroism or villainy in nuanced and multifaceted ways, so there are many axes along with they can be inverted. For example, they can be flipped in one aspect of them (such as what remained of Tony's restraints on his pursuit of goals), flipped along more than one of them (such as Doom's loss of ambition and arrogance), or reduced to a simple black-and-white caricature (such as the Scarlet Witch of Vengeance).

Of course, the "fuzzy" method of inversion in AXIS may have been part of the creators' plan—it did result from a magical spell, after all, and magic is known for its unpredictability. But I think some great story possibilities were missed by not considering what truly makes the various Marvel characters heroes or villains—or both.

April 3, 2014

Imagine you’re a leader in your community, fighting on behalf of a principle for which you are personally willing to sacrifice anything. Your own well-being is of no concern to you as long as your actions are protecting and promoting the ideal in which you believe so strongly. One day, however, you notice that your actions are hurting those around you, both those who are similarly invested in your cause as well as others who are not involved—including, perhaps, many whom you’re trying to help. You may even be winning the fight, until you notice that its costs, especially those borne by others, are simply getting too high to bear. Do you fight on, regardless of the cost, or do you stop, cutting the losses but losing the larger fight?

This sounds like the type of hypothetical situation that philosophy professors give to their students to work through. But it’s not hypothetical to people around the world who fight for social justice, gladly sacrificing their own livelihoods for their cause, while perhaps also inflicting collateral damage on others. It’s also a situation that the superhero Captain America faced in the Marvel Comics storyline “Civil War” in which he defended the freedoms of his fellow heroes against a law that would compel them to reveal their secret identities to the government and register as agents of the state.

When we think of complex and nuanced moral decision-making, comic book superheroes probably don’t immediately spring to mind. If they did, most people would choose the psychologically complex Batman rather than the flag-waving Captain America. “Cap” is often criticized, by fans in the real world as well as his fellow heroes in the Marvel Universe, as embodying old-fashioned, “black-and-white” ethical thinking that is anachronistic in our modern, morally ambiguous world. What Cap actually shows, however, is how values are of no use in realistic moral dilemmas without the essential faculty of judgment.

Each of the three major schools of moral philosophy needs the help of judgment to result in specific actions. Unique among them, virtue ethics highlights the importance of nuanced and contextual decision-making, such as in Aristotle’s emphasis on practical judgment (phronesis). Virtue ethicists recommend the cultivation of character traits such as honesty that promote moral action but stop short of formulating rules to guide it, leaving it to judgment to determine how to balance virtues in any given ethical dilemma.

Judgment is essential to the other two schools of ethics as well, although this is often minimized in favor of their rule-focused aspects. Utilitarianism seems straightforward once you get to the final step, adding up the effect of individual utilities and comparing this sum to alternatives. But the process of determining those utilities, as well as deciding whose utilities to include and which contingencies you want to account for, require judgment—and the result can have an enormous impact on whether the utilitarian calculation results in a “yea” or “nay.”

Deontology, which emphasizes duties and principles, seems more clear-cut, avoiding the messy empirical details of moral dilemmas. But it has no obvious way to deal with conflicts between two duties or principles, nor to decide when the costs of standing by principle become too great. Even Immanuel Kant, a strict deontologist, stressed the necessity of judgment, which he considered “a peculiar talent which can be practiced only, and cannot be taught” (Critique of Pure Reason, A133/B172). As Onora O’Neill wrote about Kant, “Discussions of judgment . . . are ubiquitous in Kant’s writings. He never assumes agents can move from principles of duty, or from other principles of action, to se­lecting a highly specific act in particular circumstances without any process of judg­ment. He is as firm as any devotee of Aristotelian phronesis in maintaining that prin­ciples of action are not algorithms and do not entail their own applications” (“Kant: Rationality as Practical Reason,” in The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, edited by Alfred R. Mele and Piers Rawling, p. 104).

While Captain America’s moral character is based on virtues and duties—giving the impression of simplistic, “right and wrong” thinking—he shows the importance of moral judgment in balancing these moral factors before making a decision. Take the example from the Marvel “Civil War” that led off this essay: at the end of the story (Civil War #7, January 2007), Captain America and his allies were winning the climactic battle against Iron Man and other heroes defending superhero registration. As Captain America was about to deliver the final blow against his fellow Avenger, a group of ordinary people pulled Cap away and showed him how the battle had destroyed much of Manhattan. After realizing how much the battle was costing the residents of New York, he signaled to his allies to stop fighting and surrendered. Cap didn’t abandon his principle of freedom; he simply decided it was no longer worth the cost it was imposing on others. His values didn’t change—but his judgment did.

Simple rules such as “stand by your principles” or “minimize harm” are no good in situations like this. Captain America had to keep both of these rules in mind and balance them using his judgment. As Kant emphasized, there is no way to explain judgment as a rule or algorithm; rather it is what a person turns to when rules or algorithms fail to solve a moral problem. In this way judgment resembles Ronald Dworkin’s theory of judicial decision-making, in which a judge balances the various principles relevant to a “hard case” according to the principles and ideals he or she believes best explain the broader legal system. Similarly, in a moral dilemma a person must balance his or her various principles and beliefs to arrive at a decision that maintains the integrity of his or her moral character.

Captain America’s core principles and virtues may be “black and white,” but the way that he balances them is complex, nuanced, and sensitive to context. In the dramatic, life-threatening situations he faces in his comic books and movies, Cap demonstrates how the basic ideas of ethics serve merely as guidelines that by themselves cannot determine the best or right action on their own. As the narration to Captain America, vol. 1, #184 (April 1975) read, "he thinks in principle... tempered on the forge of understanding, and honed to the edge of reality." Moral philosophy can help identify the critical elements of a problem, but each person’s judgment is crucial to finding what Dworkin called (in the context of jurisprudence) the “right answer,” the one that is consistent with his or her moral character. By doing so, we can craft our own character much like Cap’s writers craft his—with or without the red, white, and blue costume.

January 23, 2014

I was surprised to see The Virtues of Captain America up on Google Books several weeks before it's released, but on the bright side, the preview does contain the introduction, which I encourage anybody interested in this book to read. (And don't forget the first chapter is available at Wiley Blackwell's site for the book.)

I hope to post some things in the near future related to the book, including scenes and lines from the comics I had to leave out, images related to ones I did put in the book, and comics I didn't read before the book was finished (either because they came out too recently or just because I missed them).

Unlike the books I edited or co-edited for the Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture series (such as Batman and Philosophy), this one is written solely by me—for better or for worse! Also, rather than presenting a survey of philosophical ideas presented through the lens of its topic, The Virtues of Captain America has a specific focus: showing how the "old-fashioned" ethical code of Steve Rogers is just as essential today as it was in the past, not only as a role model for individual character but also as a way out of America's current political divisiveness.

I had several goals in mind as I wrote this book:

Similar to the approach of the Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture series, in this book I introduce basic concepts of moral philosophy, especially virtue ethics, using examples drawn from decades of Captain America stories. In particular, I wanted to address the complexity of moral decision-making, for which simple rules, formulas, and virtues can be a guide but never the final answer. For this reason, judgment is a constant theme in the book (and takes up an entire chapter in itself).

I wanted to address the perception that Captain America's ethical code is anachronistic, simplistic, and "black and white." As I argue throughout the book, none of these could be farther from the truth. The ideals that ground Cap's ethics are timeless, and while his core principles may be simple, the process of using judgment to balance them to make moral decisions in specific circumstances is anything but black-and-white, as Cap shows time and time again in the comics.

More ambitiously, I wanted to show that Captain America's relationship to his country—in particular, the way he emphasizes principle over politics—can help Americans in the real world to start to heal our radical political divisions. If we focus, as Cap does, on the core ideals of justice, equality, and liberty that Americans share, we can better put into context our differences of opinion regarding how best to put these ideals into practice.

And, most personally, I wanted to share my love of this classic superhero character through his decades of stories in comics such as Captain America, Avengers, and the countless other titles in which he's appeared over the years (hundreds of which are cited in the book). In the process, I also pay tribute to the dozens of talented creators who have crafted his stories, starting with Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, and Stan Lee, and continung with legends such as Jim Sternako, J.M. DeMatteis, Mark Waid, Ed Brubaker, and Paul Jenkins (just to name a few).

I'm sure to bombard you with more details and sneak peeks as the book approaches publication, but for the time being, you might like the following articles and blog posts I've written about Cap in the past (many of which laid the groundwork for the book):

A piece from this very blog discussing Cap's sense of authority in the context of Stoic thought. (You can also click on Captain America at the right to see more posts on him, not all of which are worth listing here.)

Finally, I discussed Captain America, directly or indirectly, in a number of chapters in the Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture series:

May 10, 2013

As Zap2It reported early this morning, part of Grant Morrison's sprawling DC Comics series Multiversity will tell the story of a stranger from another planet landing in Nazi Germany rather than Smallville, Kansas:

"Imagine you're Superman and for the first 25 [years] of your life you were working for Hitler," Morrison says, "And then you realize, 'Oh my god, it's Hitler!'" Morrison further explains, "Not only is he a Nazi Superman, he's a Nazi Superman that knows his entire society, though it looks utopian, was built on the bones of the dead. Ultimately it's wrong and it must be destroyed." The issue will see the caped hero going up against enemies he knows are right, as he comes to terms with the fact that the principles he was raised with are wrong.

It’s 1926, and on a small farm with a few fields of wheat, a meteorite has just charred its way through a good bit of the crop. The farmer who owns the land is dismayed. His life has been hard since the Great War, even though prices for his food have skyrocketed, at least in terms of the actual bills carried around. In fact, one of his neighbors joked that he needed a wheelbarrow to carry around the cash to buy a loaf of bread, given how worthless the money had become. He and his wife are barely scraping by. Perhaps it is just as well that they had not been able to have children. Where would they find the money? His wife is fond of saying, “God will provide,” but sometimes he has doubts. And now a large part of his best field has been destroyed by a rock from space!

As the farmer heads toward the damaged area, he calls back to his wife to bring a shovel in case there are any scattered fires to smother. He can see the hot smoke from the house, though the meteor itself is buried. His wife is almost half way to him when he reaches the crater, his eyes widening. “Magda!” he shouts, with a mixture of awe and anxiety, “Magda, bring a blanket! There is … a child!” The words seemed distant from him, as though said by someone else. His wife, believing she has misheard, runs toward him, shovel in hand.

“Jonas? What is it? What is wrong?” she asks, her hands trembling. As she nears her husband she can see him, just emerging from some sort of space pod—a small boy! A gift from God! Her prayers are finally answered. Here in the German heartland, a miracle occurs, one that will soon have profound consequences for the world at large. The small child that had landed on Jonas and Magda Kuhn’s farm was the Übermensch himself, a “super man.” The Übermensch would vindicate Hitler’s claim that the New World Order would arise in Germany and prove that nation’s superiority.

Only three years later, young Karl Kuhn, as he was named in the adoption papers, would join the Hitler Youth. Indoctrinated into the cause, his character was formed by the Nazi Party. He never knew any other life, and when the war finally came, Hitler used his young prodigy as the ultimate super-weapon. The war was over before it had begun, as the Allies had no counter to such raw power. A farm boy from the middle of nowhere had helped the Nazis take over the world.

"...Or Not" is the title of the following section, and through the rest of the chapter Sharp explains the different ways this story could go and how moral character and develop influence it. (See also the four other chapters in the book on Superman and Nietzsche for more on the Übermensch—and why the true Übermensch may be named Lex.)

As countless others do, I look forward to seeing Grant Morrison's version of this "what if" story in Multiversity—and in the meantime, be sure to pick up Superman and Philosophy!

In this chapter, I explain how Superman's powers don't make him immune to the need to make difficult moral choices that can't be solved by simple rules (much less super-strength). For examples, the chapter draws Superman's execution of three Kryptonians villains (including an alternate version of General Zod), which led to his self-imposed exile from Earth, as well as his more recent walk across America in the "Grounded" storyline (which I discussed previously here and here).

Berlatsky's main substantive points seem to be that 1) Superman is a "violent vigilante" and 2) violent vigilantism invariably and inevitably becomes directed towards the powerless in society. The first point is merely asserted but not elaborated on, as if readers would take this for granted. I think both aspects of this characterization of Superman are mistaken: he often uses force, certainly, but never disproportionately, and always to assist law enforcement when he can rather than subvert it. Batman has been known to cross both of these lines and has been criticized for it--see Colin Smith's review of the recent Batman #17, for example--but Superman has always been a clear counterpoint to this.

As for the second point, it is indeed a common storytelling device in comics for heroes to go mad with power, succumbing to the Ring of Gyges and abusing their fantastic abilities. This is an everpresent issue for Superman, the most powerful of heroes while at the same time a visitor to our fair planet. But this is a feature rather than a flaw: it allows the ongoing creators of Superman to depict the human (and Kryptonian) struggle to retain one's ethics against the pull of self-interest, especially as the power to pursue the latter grows. This highlights the importance of Clark Kent's upbringing in Smallville, where the Kents instilled a solid moral code in Clark to counteract the temptation of using his powers later. Of course he may let his resolve slip and use his powers for himself or causes he comes to believe in. But because he's a hero--because he's Superman--he won't.

So yes, a writer such as Orson Scott Card could use Superman's power to further his own agenda. But let's keep the focus of our collective disgust on Mr. Card, not on a superhero that, for 75 years, has shown us consistently how one should use amazing power for the good of others despite every temptation to do the opposite.

December 4, 2012

It's been a long wait--for me, at least!--but the cover to Superman and Philosophy is finally available (and visible to your right). As I said on my personal blog after I first saw it, I love how it parallels the Batman and Philosophy cover in general layout and title font, since the two volumes bookend my tenure with the series to date.

Here is the table of contents--I'll share more about the book as publication approaches!

Part One The Big Blue Boy Scout: Ethics, Judgment, and Reason

1 Moral Judgment: The Power That Makes Superman HumanMark D. White

2 Action Comics! Superman and Practical ReasonBrian Feltham

3 Can the Man of Tomorrow Be the Journalist of Today?Jason Southworth and Ruth Tallman

4 Could Superman Have Joined the Third Reich? The Importance and Shortcomings of Moral UpbringingRobert Sharp

Part TwoTruth, Justice, and American Way: What Do They Mean?

5 Clark Kent Is Superman! The Ethics of SecrecyDaniel Malloy

6 Superman and JusticeChristopher Robichaud

7 Is Superman an American Icon?Andrew Terjesen

Part ThreeThe Will to Superpower: Nietzsche, the Übermensch, and Existentialism

August 29, 2012

All in all, Green Lantern Annual #1, written by Geoff Johns and pencilled by Ethan Van Sciver and Pete Woods, is one of the most exciting books to come out of the DC New 52 so far. Faint praise, perhaps, but this felt like the build-up to Johns' previous GL events like "Sinestro Corps War" and "Blackest Night," and that feeling has been sorely missed over the last year.

I don't think there will be any major plot spoilers in this post aside from what already appeared in the online preview (the first six pages on the comic). I will show a couple images from later in the comic, but nothing really revealing--but be warned in any case. SPOILERS!!!

As you may have seen from the preview, the Smurfs Gone Wild have decided that the threat to the universe lies not in emotion in general, nor in individual emotions, but in the very willpower that powers the Green Lantern rings--or, as they put it, free will.

We need to be clear on they mean by "free will." He does not mean it as the term is used in metaphysical debates over free will vs. determinism. That sense of free will describes any being's ability to be the "uncaused cause" and "first mover," to be able insert his, her, or its decision-making power or agency onto a world of physical cause-and-effect. It is not up to the Guardians or anyone else to eliminate free will if it exists--it either does or does not. And if there is no free will, no one has it--including our Guardians.

No, what they mean by "free will" is true choice, agency, or autonomy, the ability to make choices independently of external (and possibly internal) authority or undue influence. Free will in this sense can exist regardless of whether metaphysical free will exists, since this variety of free will operates on a psychological level, not the level of elementary particle physics. Even if we are not truly "in control" of our thoughts and actions in a deterministic universe, we will still "make" choices independently of others' choices--in the end, they simply are not our choices at all. (For more on the various meaning of free will, see this article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Basically, the Guardians don't like that their Lanterns think for themselves, for then you end up with rebels like Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. (In fact, the middle Guardian above sounds a lot like the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg--he probably thinks the Lanterns drink too much soda too.) They want mindless creatures that will do their bidding--hence, the Third Army. And they're purty, too:

(I would have thought the word "assimilate" had been trademarked by the Star Trek people by now, but I guess not.) These soliders (for lack of a better term) have no mind, no identity, no free will. They will not make their own choices, they will not question the orders of the Guardians--they will be tools, pure and simple.

This story seems like a natural progression for Johns' broader Green Lantern arc, and I'm interested to see how it plays out. I do hope the Guardians eventually return to being good guys, if imperfect ones. Jordan and Guy Gardner disagreed with them often, of course, but at bottom they all sought the good, only disagreeing on how to pursue it. I hope Johns redeems them, or some of them, at the end of this storyline--but if the rest of New 52 universe is any guide, I'm not holding my breath.

I can't end this post without a couple panels from this comic that I found hilarious. First, we have the long-lost Guardians of Middle-Earth:

I guess they're the Lords of the... nah, too easy.

In the scene below, Hal and Sinestro have to combine the last flickers of energy in their rings to summon Sinestro's power battery. I guess Hal was a fan of the old Superfriends show, but Sinestro is none too happy with it.